


Show and Tell

by Carmenlire



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Established Relationship, Heavy Angst, Immortal Magnus Bane, Immortality Angst, M/M, Magic Revealed, Mundane Alec Lightwood, POV Alec Lightwood, Warlock Magnus Bane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 07:33:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23347723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmenlire/pseuds/Carmenlire
Summary: Because there his husband lays but he looks thirty years younger. He looks like he did the first time they met on a college campus forty seven years ago. He looks like he did during their first date when they’d went to a local diner because it was all Alec could afford. He looks the same as he did on their wedding day as he’d promised Alec all sorts of things liketill death do us part.Or, trust is a commodity and the truth will always out.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 58
Kudos: 208





	Show and Tell

Alec hums a little to himself as he opens the front door. Wincing a little as he bends over to untie his shoes-- ruefully, he reflects that he’s not as young as he once was-- he shrugs out of his coat and makes his way into the loft.

It’s quiet, which shouldn’t be surprising, but Alec pauses in the living room as a dreadful little chill curls around his spine like smoke, seems to give a little tug in warning.

Magnus had told Alec that he’d be gone until late. By all accounts, that’s still the case. 

Still, Alec cautiously walks through their home. Most of him is rolling its eyes at his dramatics but Alec had learned early and well never to dismiss what his husband calls his _sixth sense_. It’s a matter of fact that it’s saved his hide more times than he’s comfortable admitting-- trouble seems to cling to Alec, and by association Magnus.

It’s been ages since it’s fired up like this, though, and Alec swallows hard as he pauses at the hallway that branches into Magnus’s study and their bedroom. Magnus’s study door is open and as Alec peers inside, his shoulders lose a bit of their tension at the way absolutely nothing looks remiss. To Alec eternal bemusement, he’d fallen in love with a bit of a mad scientist, but all of Magnus’s potions-- as Alec likes to think of them-- look put away with nothing in danger of exploding or setting their loft ablaze.

Which, yes, has happened at least a dozen times since they moved in together all those years ago.

The dread tempers into something stronger that sinks its teeth into him as he focuses on their bedroom door that’s firmly shut in a stark contrast to the way the always leave it open when it’s unoccupied.

He can’t hear anything from the room but that doesn’t stop Alec from hesitating, hand hovering in the air as he braces himself.

With a deep breath, Alec wraps a hand around the door knob and swings it open to reveal a sight that has him almost sagging in relief before everything comes crashing to a halt and distantly, Alec wonders if this is what a heart attack feels like.

“What the fuck is this,” Alec chokes out and he watches through seeming tunnel vision as one of the people in his bed freezes.

Catarina whips her head over her shoulder and her eyes widen with fear. It would almost be comical if not for the way a vise seems to be tightening around Alec’s neck. He tries to breathe in and, in the utter stillness, it sounds like a gasp.

A wretched, desperate bid for oxygen. A plea for everything to go back just a few seconds, before Alec’s world came crashing down around his ears.

Because while Catarina sits at the edge of the bed, her hand still holding Magnus’s, Magnus is deathly still and--

And as Alec’s gaze sears into his husband, the man he’d know anywhere, it feels like he’s looking at a photograph of a time long passed.

Because there his husband lays but he looks thirty years younger. He looks like he did the first time they met on a college campus forty seven years ago. He looks like he did during their first date when they’d went to a shitty diner because it was all Alec could afford his freshman year. He looks the same as he did on their wedding day as he’d promised Alec all sorts of things like _till death do us part_.

Yeah, Alec thinks. He loves that face. He’d know that face anywhere because he still sees it in his dreams, as an aching overlay to the Magnus he’s spent a lifetime with, the one who this morning had more than a little silver in his hair, whose dashing good looks have become emphasized with wrinkles around expressive eyes and a body that had grown softer in old age.

Catarina stands up and raises her hands in a beseeching gesture. Alec tears his eyes from his husband to Magnus’s best friend.

“Now, Alec, it’s not what you think. Why don’t we--”

“It’s not what I think? What the fuck, Cat? It’s not what I think,” he spits out and suddenly the confusion and clawing panic gives way to undiluted anger. “What the hell is it then? What possible explanation could there be for the way my husband, who just turned sixty eight fucking years old last month looks like, like he hasn’t aged since the day he turned thirty? Is this a prank? Is this just you two wanting to give me heart failure for a laugh?”

Alec fairly chokes out the questions, can’t quite squash out the hope the lingers in the undertone of his demand. The very small part of his mind that’s retained its rationality wonders if he’s really contemplating the fact that his husband just-- what? Can change his appearance in such a way? Nothing makes sense but Alec can’t think of anything at all to explain the way Magnus looks right now.

It’s then that Magnus lets out a pained groan and Alec watches as Catarina immediately turns back around and soothes him for a moment before taking a vial and tipping it up to Magnus’s mouth.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Catarina doesn’t look at him as she replies, “He was supposed to have a meeting with a potential partner this afternoon. He’d been looking for a war-- colleague who shared his interests in the properties of a certain herb and its ability to act as a sort of cell regenerator. That colleague betrayed him and when Magnus showed up at the designated location, they ambushed him. Took all of his notes and his supply of the herb and left him for dead. Luckily, he was able to call me and I was able to stabilize him and bring him home.”

Glaring into nothing as he takes in the summary of events, Alec pushes everything to the background as he nears the bed and asks, “Shouldn’t we take him to a hospital?”

He looks up just in time to see Catarina spare him a single, pitying look. “Oh, Alec, that’s never an option.”

Sitting down on the edge of the bed next to Cat, Alec focuses on his husband. He raises a hand and gently runs his fingers through Magnus’s hair and loses himself for long moments just looking at the love of his life, the one person he prides himself on knowing better than anyone.

“What is this, Catarina?”

From his periphery, he sees Cat still for a split second as her mouth settles into a firm line. Her voice is just as soft as his and more than apologetic when she only offers, “It’s not my place to tell you, Alec. I can’t begin to understand what’s going through your head right now but I can’t tell you what this is.”

She looks up to meet his eyes and Alec stops breathing at the sorrow in her eyes and the blinding sympathy. “All I can tell you is that Magnus was injured so deeply that his energy stores were utterly depleted and he is unable to control his appearance right now. This is his true body, Alec.” She pauses a moment to let that sink in before continuing. “I just want you to keep an open mind and remember that whatever Magnus did, he’s always done it with you and your relationship in mind.”

Her gaze pierces his and Alec nods once before turning back to his husband. “What can I do?”

Catarina sighs before standing and stretching her hands over her head. “There’s nothing else to be done. His body has to recover now. He’ll probably sleep the rest of the day and most of the next few. But don’t worry, he’ll be back to his old self before you know it.”

Alec’s lips turn up at _his old self_ and he wonders what-- who-- that even is anymore.

Nothing makes sense, nothing but Alec’s hand in Magnus’s and Alec clings onto that feeling as he watches his husband rest as his mind races at possibility and awe, all of it overshadowed with a pervasive sense of betrayal.

A few days later and, true to Catarina’s words, everything is back to normal.

Alec scoffs to himself. What the fuck does that even mean anymore.

He leans against the doorjamb of their ensuite as he watches Magnus shave. Magnus doesn’t remember Alec seeing him at his worst. Last night, Alec had watched, stunned, as a glamour seemed to ripple over his husband’s body. As far as he knew, Magnus had still been sleeping but his body had changed, becoming the body Alec had grown with over the years. The hair had faded into a deep silver and his jawline had softened, the backs of his hands developing the faintest spots of age. 

And now it’s the next morning and as Alec watches the man before him act as though everything’s fine-- he’d woken up telling Alec that he’d been sleeping off a flu of all things-- something ugly rears itself in Alec’s chest and he finds himself unable to hold back.

“I’ve been at your bedside for three days, Magnus.”

Humming in acknowledgement, Magnus looks up and meets his eyes in the mirror. His smile is warm and guileless. Alec wonders how his husband can look at him and lie so goddamn easily, through his fucking teeth, without batting an eye.

“I’m sure it wasn’t a pretty sight, Alexander. Thank you for taking care of me.”

Alec doesn’t reply and Magnus seems content to let the silence settle.

Waiting until his husband finishes shaving and is patting his face dry, Alec finally clears his throat. Without waiting for a response, he asks, in a voice that’s soft as silk, “Isn’t it a lot of work?”

“Whatever are you talking about, darling?”

Alec smiles at the question, at the way Magnus’s tone make it so obvious that he’s humoring him. His smile shifts into something sharper. “Sorry, babe. Isn’t it a lot of work lying to me every goddamn minute of every goddamn day?”

Magnus freezes for a moment so small he almost misses it, before he turns around to face Alec properly. He sees the stirrings of annoyance and confusion in brown eyes he knows as well as his own and can’t help but cast his mind back over the past three days-- to every time Magnus would wake up for a few minutes at a time as Alec forced one of the healing potions Cat left behind into him.

To every time Magnus would open hazy gold eyes with slit pupils.

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Alec,” Magnus says slowly. “What are you talking about?”

Alec leans his head against the door jamb and allows his eyes to close for a brief moment. He knows the moment the words leave his mouth that everything will change between them but he has to know. Most of him supposes that things changed the minute he entered the loft that afternoon.

Taking a shuddering breath, Alec straightens but keeps his arms crossed over his chest as he meets Magnus’s concerned stare.

“I’ve always thought you had the prettiest eyes,” Alec starts softly and he watches the banked pleasure Magnus tries to tamp down before he finishes, “But I think I might just like when they’re gold more.”

It’s startling, how quickly Magnus pales. Alec watches, unmoving, as his husband sways, as he swallows hard. “What do you mean, Alexander,” he asks hoarsely, desperation casting a bitter edge on the words.

And Alec, well he can’t stop the mocking laugh that escapes him. He shakes his head and it’s at both of them. “Jesus Christ, babe, you just don’t stop, do you? What do I mean,” he repeats on a breath. “You didn’t have the flu, Magnus.”

Alec doesn’t phrase it as a question and thankfully, thank God, Magnus doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t do anything. He just stares at Alec like he doesn’t know who he is.

Alec can relate.

“I came home from work to find you and Cat in our bedroom. You were passed out and she was holding your hand. Magnus you were--” and here, Alec’s voice breaks and he chokes on his next words because it still doesn’t seem real no matter how often he replays it. “Magnus, you looked young enough to be my son. Christ, you looked so young, the same as the day we met. Like-- like you should be in college and not married to a man planning his retirement at the end of the year--”

Magnus finally seems to unfreeze and he all but throws himself at Alec, resting his hands on just beneath his jaw and trying to capture his gaze. “Alec, Alexander, darling, I know what you think you saw but--”

“No,” Alec snaps and he watches as Magnus flinches back at his harsh tone. “Don’t, Magnus. Don’t you dare fucking lie to my face again. I swear to God that if you lie to me one more time, I’ll walk out of this apartment and never look back.”

Magnus chokes on a desperate inhale and Alec thinks, if he listened for it, that he could feel his heart breaking in the way his husband seems to be collapsing in on himself.

A part of him wants to comfort Magnus. A bigger part wants answers.

Magnus’s lips part and it takes him a moment to get the words out. “What did Catarina tell you?”

“She said it wasn’t her place to tell me anything.”

Nodding as he processes that, Magnus looks up and Alec bites his tongue hard enough to taste copper at the way different eyes stare back at him.

“I love you, Alexander. I need you to know that before I say anything else. I have built this life with you because I can’t imagine it without you.”

“I love you, too,” Alec echoes gently and he sees the way Magnus’s shoulders droop, just a little in relief.

Tilting his head down, Magnus takes Alec’s hands and focuses on the gleaming gold of his wedding ring.

“I’m older than you, darling.” Before Alec can agree, can easily reply that Magnus is three years older, his husband is continuing, “I told you I was born in Jakarta, Indonesia and immigrated to The States for college.”

Magnus takes a harsh breath and lifts his head to look at Alec dead in the eye. “I was actually born in Batavia, of the Dutch East Indies, several centuries ago. I moved to America before the first World War.”

The entire loft seems to still at the bombshell. Alec takes several moments to fit this new information into everything he knows about the man before him. While it’s fantastical and downright insane to believe Magnus without so much as a single follow-up question, Alec can’t help but think that it fits. It’s like a missing puzzle piece has all of a sudden appeared and slotted itself into place.

“Change back,” Alec mutters through numb lips. At Magnus’s confused look, he says, “I want to see what you really look like.”

Magnus swallows hard but he steps back, looking away as with a wave of his hand, he changes and looks at once so different yet still so familiar that it has tears stinging Alec’s eyes.

“As you have no doubt become aware, I do not age. I am-- I am immortal, Alec.”

Narrowing his eyes, Alec studies Magnus. A thought strikes him and has nausea building in his throat. “You’re immortal. That means you will never die.”

All Magnus offers is a single, painstaking nod in confirmation.

Bile rises to Alec’s throat and a stray tear spills over, his brain working faster than he can process, already reaching the inevitable conclusion before he’s quite ready to bear it.

“You will never die. But I will.”

It looks like it takes everything Magnus has to simply nod, once more, without looking at Alec.

“What the fuck, Magnus?”

Magnus recoils at the pure venom in Alec’s tone, but Alec doesn’t give him a chance to respond before he’s taking a step back, away from his husband who he’s staring at like he just grew another goddamn head.

“You’ve spent the past fifty years with me and to me, that’s my life. I’ve spent my life with you. But to you, it’s just-- what? A pit stop? After I’d die, you what? Just leave on your merry way and forget about me? Was I nothing but a passing diversion?”

“Alexander, how could you think that? I have spent the past decades madly in love with you. I’ve built a life with you-- we’ve built our life together. I have never, not for one moment, taken the fact that you want to spend your forever with me lightly. I can’t imagine my life without you, darling.”

“Well, you’ll have to, won’t you?” Alec knows he’s being harsh but there’s a voice in his head positively sneering at him for being played the fool. He can’t understand why Magnus has played house with him all these years-- would go to the pains of hiding his true self from Alec all this time-- unless he was bored and had decided Alec was a nice enough distraction in his seemingly endless life. “I’m in my sixties, Magnus. Let’s be realistic here. We don’t have that much time left. Optimistically, I’m hoping for another twenty years but shit happens. Your little masquerade has an expiration date.”

“Don’t you think I know that,” Magnus fairly snarls. “You don’t think I am aware of every single second passing through my hands like grains of sand?” He laughs caustically. “I know the tragedy of our situation more than you will ever comprehend, Alec. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about how this will end.”

“Why would you lie to me, Magnus? Why not just tell me?” There’s an acrid edge to his words and Alec is inundated with doubt. All of his thoughts circle round and round in his head and they all inevitably perch on one particular branch.

Magnus has never been completely honest with him when Alec has shown him every conceivable side of himself. Magnus has never trusted Alec like Alec trusts him and that is, without a doubt, the most bitter pill Alec has ever swallowed.

He practically strangles himself forcing it down.

Magnus laughs and it sounds like grief. “You don’t think I know how much this is to handle? I never wanted you to know that I’m-- that I’m not like you. I never wanted to put the pain of my existence on your shoulders. You made the decision to spend your life with me and there isn’t a world where I don’t honor that.”

“But that’s the thing, isn’t it, babe? I have given you all of myself and you-- well. A part of me is starting to think you’ve only ever given me what was convenient.”

Magnus’s face leeches of all color and his mouth is already open on a protest when Alec raises a single hand up to stop whatever torrent of words was about to fall between them like so much lead.

Alec takes a single step back. And then he takes another. “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. I feel like I don’t even know you.”

“Alexander, please--”

“No, Magnus.” Alec swallows hard and forces steel into his voice so that it doesn’t crack, doesn’t shatter like the heart he can barely feel beating in his chest. “I need time to think.”

He turns around to leave but Magnus’s words stop him. They’re weak, a plea that Alec’s never heard from his husband. “I don’t want you to leave, Alec.”

Alec looks over his shoulder and meets gold eyes wavering with tears. It feels like he carves his own goddamn heart from beneath his ribs as he says, “And I don’t want to stay.”

He turns back around and leaves Magnus in their loft, surrounded by all their things that mark a life together. Alec’s given Magnus everything and in return, he can’t help but think he’s gotten a mountain of deception and a life that feels uncomfortably close to a charade.

Alec wonders if any of it was ever real, if it’s possible that anything can be salvaged from the biggest heartbreak of his life.

He wanders through the city, stacking up a lifetime together against a betrayal that deadens his gut and wonders what will tip the scales back in their favor.

No matter how hard he thinks, Alec can't find the answer.

He supposes only time will tell and hopes, desperately, that they don't run out before they can find a way back to each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on tumblr or twitter @carmenlire!


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